Publisher description for Indo-European and its closest relatives : the Eurasiatic language family / Joseph H. Greenberg.
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The basic thesis of this two-volume work is that the extensively studied Indo-European family of languages is a branch of a much larger Eurasiatic family that extends from northern Asia to North America, encompassing Indo-European, Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic, Japanese-Korean-Ainu, Gilyak, Chuckchi-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut. The author asserts that the numerous and interlocking resemblances he finds among the various subgroups can only reasonably be explained by descent from a common ancestor. Volume 1 deals with the distribution and forms of 72 grammatical elements in the various Eurasiatic languages, preceded by a historical introduction and a discussion of certain phonological phenomena. An appendix deals with the vowel variation of Ainu, and the book also includes a classification of Eurasiatic languages and an index of the etymologies. Volume 2 on semantics will present the vocabulary evidence.
Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Indo-European languages, Ural-Altaic languages, Hyperborean languages